By The Canadian Press

Hockey players had group chat to discuss response to sex assault allegations: witness

May 15, 2025 | 2:00 AM

Members of Canada’s 2018 world junior hockey team discussed what to tell Hockey Canada investigators looking into their encounter with a woman in a London, Ont., hotel room, court heard Thursday in the sexual assault trial of five players.

Players exchanged a series of messages roughly a week after the June 2018 encounter, forming a group chat for those who were in the room, court heard.

“We all need to say the same thing if we get interviewed can’t have different stories or make anything up,” Michael McLeod said in the chat, which was entered as evidence.

CAUTION: The following paragraphs contain graphic content some readers may find disturbing.

“All we have to say is ‘someone brought the girl back to the room. We were all in there ordering food and then this girl started begging from everyone to have sex with her. Nobody would do it. But then as time went on she gave 3 guys head. Once things started to get out of hand we all left and got her out,'” Brett Howden, who is not charged in the case, wrote later in the exchange.

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“Sounds good to me,” replied Maxime Comtois, another player who was not charged.

“Ya that’s all that happened so we are good. …She gave those guys consent so it’s all good,” Dillon Dube wrote. Later, he said they shouldn’t make the woman “sound too crazy” because she could get angrier if she heard about it and “we don’t need that.”

The chat ended shortly after Jake Bean, who is not charged in the case, told the group to “stop talking in here” and contact their agents.

McLeod, Dube, Alex Formenton, Carter Hart and Callan Foote have pleaded not guilty to sexual assault in connection with an encounter that took place in the early hours of June 19, 2018. McLeod has also pleaded not guilty to an additional charge of being a party to the offence of sexual assault.

The Crown alleges McLeod, Hart and Dube obtained oral sex from the woman without her consent, and Dube slapped her buttocks while she was engaged in a sexual act with someone else.

Foote allegedly did the splits over her face and “grazed” his genitals on it without her consent. Formenton is alleged to have had vaginal sex with the complainant without her consent inside the bathroom.

Court has heard that several players who were not charged were in the hotel room and the group chat.

Tyler Steenbergen, who was on the team and provided the chat to police, said two of the players — Dube and Foote — also called him to ask that he not tell investigators about what they had done because they wanted to explain it themselves.

Describing the events of the night, Steenbergen testified that he, Dube and Bean went to McLeod’s room together after hearing there was food. He recalled seeing Comtois, Howden, Drake Batherson and Sam Steel when he went inside.

He testified Wednesday that he was shocked when he heard there was a “naked girl” in the bathroom and again when the woman asked if any of them would have sex with her.

The woman came out of the bathroom, laid down on a sheet on the floor and began masturbating, then said “Can one of you guys come over and f–k me?” he testified.

Hart walked over soon after and received oral sex, Steenbergen said.

On Thursday, Steenbergen said he then saw Dube slap the woman’s butt. Steenbergen was having a conversation with Bean, he said, when he “just looked up and saw a slap.”

“It wasn’t hard, but it didn’t seem soft either,” he said. The woman then went on to give oral sex to McLeod, he said.

Foote came into the room soon after, Steenbergen testified, adding that he saw Foote do the splits. There were people in the way, so Steenbergen couldn’t see clearly, he said, nor could he see if Foote’s body touched the woman.

The mood in the room was “awkward and disbelief,” he said. “That, for me, is how I felt.”

Foote left the room quickly afterward, and when the woman got up to go to the bathroom, Steenbergen and Bean made their exit, he said.

Jurors were dismissed early Thursday so that lawyers could make submissions on legal issues.

The complainant, who spent nine days on the stand via CCTV, said she was naked and drunk when men started coming into the room where she’d just had sex with McLeod — an encounter that’s not part of the trial.

She said while no one physically forced her to engage in sexual acts, she was scared and felt she had no choice but to go along with what the men in the room wanted her to do.

During cross-examination, defence lawyers suggested the woman asked McLeod to invite his friends over and then urged the men to have sex with her.

The woman has maintained that she has no memory of saying such things and that the phrases don’t sound like something she would say. She agreed it was possible she said them, but in that case, she testified, it would be a sign that she was out of her mind due to intoxication.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 15, 2025.

Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press